


Crystal Bones

by Sakura_Lawliet



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mystery, Original Character-centric, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, paranormal elements, protective older brother, sibling power, single mother, single parent, strong sibling relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakura_Lawliet/pseuds/Sakura_Lawliet
Summary: Really, her life is not as exciting as one would expect. With a hard-earned teaching career precariously juggled in one hand, and the continuous learning position as a single mother to a wonderful son in the other - the only truly exhausting stimuli she finds herself battling with is her own inner complexities and the perplexing stoicism of an eccentric student.
Relationships: L (Death Note)/Original Female Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Crystal Bones

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been in the works for _many_ years. Just ask my readers over on FF, haha. By the way, this is cross-posted to FF, too.
> 
> Anyway, this is fairly Original Character-centric, as you'll see by this first chapter - but it'll evolve as the story progresses. This story is purely for fun, like all my other fanfics, so don't take it too seriously, thanks :). Just have fun with it, like me.
> 
> We'll probably get into a lot of interesting subjects while going through this fic, mostly because it's _Death Note_ , but hopefully they'll be handled with care when they come up.
> 
> Just to quickly say, Light is _not_ a favorite character of mine. Quite the opposite, actually - so, please don't expect much from him - _I_ don't expect much character development from him, and I'm the one writing this.
> 
>  **Disclaimer** : I don't own _Death Note_ , nor gain any profit from this fanfic. I only own the Original Characters that show up throughout the story.
> 
>  **Warning(s)** : This chapter has recurrent themes of emotional abuse associated with a broken home and negligent parents.
> 
> Rating and/or tags will be updated as this story progresses. Please keep an eye out for any changes that may come about.

Dinner bowls dully click with every stray chopstick that comes to tap against their surface. It's the only truly loud noise in the room; silence laying a blanketing hand over everyone around the table, heavy and thick.

Aki remains quiet because it's the only thing she truly knows at such a young age, while her older brother laughs in the seat to her left. It's bitter and careless, raw at the edges. It seems to make the air around him charge with a latent static that tingles over her skin. It would scare her if she had ever been scared of her brother, but she knows him - just like he knows her.

This, she learns, is trust.

Something her parents have little of, by the way they tense their shoulders and purse their lips. Their eyes are murky and unsure, their fingers trembling around their utensils. They feel the muddy atmosphere, but they don't know what to do about it.

They glance at Aki periodically, picking around her food. She doesn't like leeks, but her brother does so she leaves them to the side for him to have later.

"Aki," her father starts but then stops.

She continues to eat her rice, not really ignoring him, but unsure what else to do when he doesn't add anything to the call of her name. Her chopsticks make a dull noise when she lays them down in her partially empty bowl.

Her father swallows thickly when she raises her eyes to meet his. "You can leave," he hurries to excuse her and pauses at the sight of her bowl. "Don't worry about the dishes, we'll… we'll take care of them."

She acknowledges the dismissal with a short nod, slipping away from the table and glancing only momentarily to her brother. There's a smile etched into his face like stone, it's neither happy nor sad, and it confuses her, but she doesn't comment on it.

She goes to her room to wait until her brother is done. She has homework to finish anyway.

* * *

For Aki, there is no place entirely silent. There are faint whispers in every corner of the house, beckoning for her attention. They fall deaf on her parents' ears, but her brother seems to hear them just as well. He steers her away from anything that seems a little too sinister and makes sure to always keep to her side.

Oftentimes, there's a grim frown that mars his face, but he's gentle when he coaxes her to move on. Her room is their only safe haven, but even then they can still hear the distant shrieking of the voices carried by the wind just outside her window.

She never really understands what they are - too young to question it, but not old enough to fear it either.

* * *

Her brother is kind to her. Running cool hands through her hair after a nightmare, whispering encouraging words in her ear after a bad day at school, telling her bedtime stories late at night when the dark is just a little bit too claustrophobic.

He has smiles just for her, lopsided and bright. Dimples at the corner of his mouth, boyish and bold.

He is different from their parents, who ignore her on the best of days and stare at her with dark eyes at the worst of them. She learns resentment in the leering gleam they stare her down with on the days they can't help themselves.

Aki is warm in her bed, the moon full and welcoming through her window, but there is a lingering coldness around her heart when she turns to ask her brother in the dead of the night, why they hate her so.

He pets a cold hand over her forehead and through the hair not trapped beneath her and the bed. He sits gently next to her on the bed, trying not to jostle her, and she can barely see him through the darkness as he bends and moves with the shadows. She's always had flimsy eyesight and her glasses are on her nightstand because she isn't supposed to wear them to bed, but right now she wishes she could.

 _They are fools_ , he answers, a growl low in his throat that Aki knows isn't for her. In fact, it heats the clinging coldness left thudding around in her chest. Her brother always knew how to make her feel better and she smiles.

He smiles back.

* * *

"There's something wrong with her," she'll hear in her mother's defeated voice as the older woman hunches over the kitchen sink.

Her father finds Aki halted outside of the kitchen to get a glass of water. He stops in the doorway as well and stares her right in the eyes with his own narrowed ones.

"She must get it from your side of the family," is all he says.

* * *

She finds her leftover leeks in the garbage one day. There's a numbness in her mind and a sharp pain in her heart, but she brushes it away.

Maybe brother just didn't want them this time.

She won't question why he never eats at the table with them during meal times - or why her parents never set a plate for him. And she won't ask why he always seems so angry with them.

She'd be angry if she couldn't eat either.

* * *

Her parents are yelling again.

Aki doesn't know if they know she can hear them - maybe they want her to, but she doesn't like it.

Her brother likes it even less, as he sits there and tries to cover her ears when they mention her name in the midst of their argument. Their words are sharp and cutting, edging on hysterical as they lash out at each other.

He whispers apologies to her in the shadows of her room and frowns in distress at her incomprehensive expression as she stares out her window to the moon. Eyes blank and heart heavy.

She just doesn't understand.

Did she do something wrong? Did her brother?

Is that why they seem so annoyed by her? Is that why they ignore him more than they ignore her?

She doesn't understand.

* * *

She learns that there are more of those like her brother, whatever he might be.

Some are similar to her brother, light and airy, like mist after rain or cottony clouds on sunny days. These ones are friendly and sweet. Just a conversation or so and they'll be on their way - to do whatever it is they do.

Others are heavy and congealed, like smoke and ash settled clumps in her lungs. They like to pick and prod at her, laugh at her from dark corners; a thousand bitter voices stabbing at her from the shadows to await her moments of weakness. They invade her dreams, twisting them into nightmares, while they stick grimy, frostbitten fingers into her mind to leave behind the icy remnants of their violation.

Her brother learns what it means to fight as he is. To make himself out to be bigger than he is, to warp his nails into hooked claws, to make his teeth razor sharpened fangs. He wraps his energy around himself and he leans into his nature to protect, shredding her monsters into nothing, their wounded shrieking a warning to the others of their kind.

She is as worried for him as she is thankful.

* * *

The moon is hidden away. She can't separate her brother from the dark, but she knows that he's there all the same.

She thinks she understands now.

She listens to the distant mourning moans carried on the wind that are always just that bit louder on nights of the new moon but seemingly only heard by her and her brother. The wailing noise of too many people lost to the world, to the cycle of life.

Her brother sings to her in his latest attempt to drown out the sorrowful lament, but she hears them still. Chilling, grating howls that sink claws into her skin.

She reaches a hand out towards her brother, wanting to feel his cool fingers in hers - wanting to reassure herself of him. Of her. Of both of them.

"Are you real?" She whispers into the dark and the singing cuts off abruptly. Her heart jumps in a sudden panic. Did she break the spell? Did speaking it out loud break an unspoken rule? Did she lose her brother? Did she ruin everythin-

There are cold fingers in hers, soothing and heartfelt - and Aki breathes a sigh of relief.

 _As real as the sun_ , he responds, voice thick and all-encompassing, like drizzled rain and thick fog on cloudy days. _As real as the moon and sky - and the stars_.

She trembles in the silence as the wind and its woeful cries scratch over the outside of her window and walls, trying to get inside.

"Am _I_ real?" She murmurs, eyes wide and searching, but unseeing in the dark.

 _Of course_ , he assures, both gentle and firm with the squeeze of her hand in his. _I promise_.

There's a growing crescendo and a gradual fall in the dirge that plays on repeat throughout the entire night.

She learns to fall asleep to it.

* * *

"What am I?" She asks him another night.

The smile on his face is different than usual, but she still recognizes the happy twist of it on his mouth when he replies, _Special_.

Later on, she'll learn to read the pride on his face every time he praises her.

* * *

It's after school one day when she folds her knees underneath her on her bed and stares at the flickering, shadowy shape of her one, lone confidant. It's barely late evening, her room a blooming mess of bright golds and fiery oranges. Her hair is highlighted in reds and yellows, her skin burnished a glowing amber, and her eyes shine a swirling mix of yellow-green. Otherworldly. Ethereal almost, but she was just as real as anything else in her room washed in the colors of the setting sun.

Her brother, however…

"You are not like us," she states. It's not a question, not anymore, but he answers all the same.

 _No_.

She understands now.

* * *

Her parents continue to fight and suffocate in silence in revolving turns as the days, weeks, and months pass. They walk past each other like strangers most days but glare at her in unison on others.

They treat her like an outsider, not their daughter. And each day, her brother's growls get deeper and deeper in his own resentment towards them. He can't do anything except watch and make the air tingle in his static energy. When he realizes that they can actually feel it - that it makes them uncomfortable - he does it as frequently as he's able to.

Aki takes the time to soothe him like he's a ruffled animal, to pet back his hair like he does for her on her more lonely nights. It's no use for him to work himself up for something she no longer pays mind to. She has her brother and that's all she truly needs.

* * *

As Aki grows, she gradually opens up. Learns how to smile, to laugh, to be happy. Her eyes light up like stars and her heart softens. She lives stepping around her parents who seem more and more like statues as time goes on. She forces herself to stop instantly replying to her brother while out in public - though it hurts her heart - and her brother laughs at her when she forgets herself and draws attention by seemingly talking to herself.

All the while, her brother is a playful presence at her side, cheering her on from the sidelines with his signature dimpled grin. _Aki_ , he'll say, _You're so smart_. His fingers trailing over the perfect grade in the corner of her mathematics test. _You're doing so well_ , he'll praise like he wasn't the one that helped her study.

Friends come and go, but he always remains constant.

* * *

She finishes high school with flying colors, goes into university with high hopes.

The first chance she gets, Aki moves out of her parents' place and makes a home of her own with her brother. She works part-time after school in order to keep it, but she'll take what she can get. Even if her brother disapproves of her working herself to the bone, she'll do what needs to be done to be independent and free of her parents' ire.

In her first year of university, she meets someone new. He's charming, all light eyes and perfect smiles. His personality is plain, but his calming nature is just on the side of unique. Even her brother is tamed on the days he's not stubbornly upset that she's found a new friend besides him.

Her brother pouts in the corner the times when Aki has her new companion over to help with her university work instead of him and he leaves with disgruntled huffs when things start to get a little heated.

Afterward, he'll grumble in the shadows at her when the boy finally leaves.

 _So weak_ , he'll whine, _So fragile minded. My Aki deserves better than that..._ _ **thing**_.

She laughs, eyeing him behind her in the mirror she uses to help comb her hair into something manageable. She's soft around the edges now. More delicate looking than ever before, like a part of her finally settled itself into place after years of being skewed.

"Oh, Rei. It's not a matter of deserving," she murmurs, locking eyes with her reflection. "It's a matter of experiencing."

Rei scoffs, _He's too normal_.

"Am I too different?" She wonders, laying her comb down on her dresser with a soft click.

Her brother frowns, _You are special_.

She sighs. "Rei, I don't want special. I want _tangible_."

There's a silence that she doesn't really understand until she turns to face her brother. He stands rigid in the shadows as they bend and weave, flickering like the flame of a candle - his face blank and unreadable.

_Am I not tangible enough?_

"Rei."

_I understand; I am not flesh, nor blood._

"You are my brother," she clarifies. "I want for you to feel _free_ \- to enjoy as I enjoy, to love as I love, to want as I want. I wish for you to do as I do without feeling tethered to my side."

 _I am not_ _ **tethered**_ , he sneers. _Do you think I am mindless_?

"No!" Aki exclaims, fingernails digging into the ledge of her dresser. "I just don't want to be the reason why you are stuck here! Forced to follow me around and around in circles like a collared dog."

 _I_ _**want** _ _to be here. I made that choice, not you._

"You are no dog, Rei."

_I am not._

Tears well in her eyes, but they do not fall. "I'm glad you're still here," she admits in a whisper.

He answers, _Me too, Aki._

* * *

She's in love going into her third year of university. Or, at least, she thinks she is.

The boy she met in her first year is still her closest friend in the school, they trail behind each other like autumn leaves in the fall that chase after the wind. They help each other with classwork and projects alike, leaving silences empty between them comfortably.

She feels warm gazing at him, like a spot of candlelight made itself a home in her chest just for him, his name stamped all over it. She's happy, chatting her brother's ears off when it's just the two of them, her paramour's name on her lips every second of every minute.

Aki feels more alive than she's ever felt.

It's only after coming into the final semester of the school year that she realizes that she's the only one putting work into their relationship. She's always the one reaching out, always the one making time, always the one willing to meet half-way. The man has a hundred excuses ready on the tip of his tongue, and a tendency to treat her like a background picture frame hanging on the wall - barely noticing her existence.

She's unsettled by the revelation but easily brushes it aside, hoping it's just her mind making correlations where there really aren't any. Rei disagrees with this notion adamantly.

It isn't until things come to breaking point near the end of their last semester of the year. A broken condom leads to a fight and then to a change of sorts. The threat of pregnancy is too much for her paramour to handle and he takes his chance to flee.

She's left high and dry, her brother a growling mess at her side. On one hand, she's absolutely terrified and greatly upset - on the other, she's almost weightless in her relief and wonder of a potential new chapter opening up to her.

 _Together, Aki_ , Rei insists. _If anything comes to fruition, we'll do it together._

She can spare a genuine smile for him, "Like always."

He agrees with an answering smile of his own, _Like always_.

* * *

Threat becomes promise - she's later congratulated by her doctor for a positive pregnancy.

Momentarily, she's struck dumb by the news, like she hasn't unconsciously been expecting this very outcome. She still goes home to pass on the announcement to her brother, who is immediately just absolutely ecstatic at the confirmation. Once, of course, he can wrap his mind around the fact that his baby sister is going to be a _mother_ \- of all things.

The plans they make in anticipation of the baby's arrival go smoothly enough. It's working around her work and school schedules simultaneously that start causing some hitches. And as her pregnancy advances, her cravings and nausea come and go with bewildering speeds which doesn't help her at all.

Rei is a forced bystander, who can only watch and encourage. He becomes both morbidly fascinated _and_ disgusted by what her body makes her crave as he cheers her on.

* * *

Soon, it's a tantalizing slip into November when she goes into labor - giving birth to a screaming, lively baby boy. It's a harrowing, stressful ordeal, but entirely worth it when she finally lays eyes on her child for the first time.

He's tiny and messy with her body fluids, but also completely and utterly _perfect_. Rei agrees too, after coming back into his senses - having zoned out a long while ago, not truly wanting anything to do with her giving birth, but wishing to stay by her side so as to not leave her all alone.

Aki is left bone-tired after such an eventful night - but in her heart, she is warmed by the new chapter suddenly opened up to her. In the back of her mind, she knows that this was only the beginning and that between a baby, school, and work, she would struggle to keep equilibrium, but she pushes all those thoughts away. Right at this moment, she chooses to soak up the relief and happiness of giving birth. With her brother and, now, her child - she's going to be the most content woman in the world. She just knows it.

 _Have you picked a name yet_? Her brother softly askes her. Later, a nurse would ask the same question.

Each time, there's a happy smile on her face when she answers while safely nested in the hospital bed with her child in her arms, "Kouji."


End file.
